Casinos By Country

Canada

The market for online casinos in Canada is growing, although it is not necessarily legal for operators outside the country to do business there except for one jurisdictional location. Canadians certainly enjoy online gambling, and in fact there are quite a few vendors involved in the online casino industry who operate within the country.

Casinos in Canada

The situation with gambling on an overall basis is a very interesting one in Canada. The governments of the various provinces participate in running lotteries, and there are many to choose from, with names like Lotto Max, Lotto 649, Lottario, British Columbia 49, Atlantic 49, Quebec 49 and Western 649, among others. Racetracks have a presence, with Woodbine, located in Toronto, being the most prominent.

Like it is in the U.S., there are ongoing debates over the virtues of casinos, as jurisdictions consider it as a possible source of revenue. Land-based casinos are part of the landscape, and there are probably more on the way. There is also sports betting in Canada, which exists by way of a series of games called Sports Select, which allows customers to, in effect, play parlay cards that are related to results in sporting events of all kinds, including baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer and golf. They are purchased just like lottery tickets, and results can be tracked online or by using a smartphone app.

If an online gambling service is not offered by a provincial government (British Columbia and Quebec would be examples), it is not "legal." As we mentioned, there is an exception to this rule, and it involves the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, on the Mohawk reservation, which does indeed license online casino operations. Even so, there are a number of online casinos that are not licensed anywhere in Canada that take action from Canadian customers, accept payment options that also cater to Canadian residents, and gladly take Canadian dollars for transactions. Many casinos, however, prohibit customers from anywhere in North America from playing. As is the case in the U.S., it is not illegal, per se, for Canadians to actually play in an online casino.

And like the United States, politicians see which way the wind is blowing, so considering that the government is already in the gambling business on a number of different levels, one can expect that online gambling will continue to be looked at as an alternative to raise revenues, thus loosening things up in the market as time progresses.